the dullest understanding

"Peace! Ye wit not what ye ask. Shall I starve whom I love, to win a gentle death? I wend thou knewest me better."
"Well," I said, "I can't quite make this out. tr90 hk It is a puzzle. Now --"
"Ah, dear my lord, an ye will but persuade him! Consider how these his tortures wound me! Oh, and he will not speak! -- whereas, the healing, the solace that lie in a blessed swift death --"
"What ARE you maundering about? He's going out from here a free man and whole -- he's not going to die."
The man's white face lit up, and the woman flung herself at me in a most surprising explosion of joy, and cried out:
"He is saved! -- for it is the king's word by the mouth of the king's servant -- Arthur, the king whose word is gold!"
"Well, then you do believe I can be trusted, after all. Why didn't you before?"
"Who doubted? Not I, indeed; and not she."
"Well, why wouldn't you tell me your story , then?"
"Ye had made no promise; else had it been otherwise."
"I see, I see.... And yet I believe I don't quite see, after all. You stood the torture and refused to confess; which shows plain enough to even that you had nothing to confess --"
"I, my lord? How so? It was I that killed the deer!"
"You DID? Oh, dear, this is the most mixed-up business that ever --"
"Dear lord, I begged him on my knees to confess, but --"
"You DID! It gets thicker and thicker. What did you want him to do that for?"
"Sith it would bring him a quick death and save him all this cruel pain."
"Well -- yes, there is reason in that. But HE didn't want the quick death."
"He? Why, of a surety he DID."
"Well, then, why in the world DIDN'T he confess?"
"Ah, sweet sir, and leave my wife and chick without bread and shelter?"
"Oh, heart of gold, now I see it! The bitter law takes the convicted man's e